The Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Joseph Whittal, has criticized the passage of the Promotion of Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, also known as anti-LGBTQ+bill.
His contention is that enacting laws on the basis of a country’s cultural values in the modern world, is backward.
“This thing that we are joking with if, we don’t take time, it will boomerang in our face and the signals are coming. So, is it worth the so-called values that we are thinking of in a globalised world. How are you going to hold Christian values?” he asked.
On Wednesday, February 28, Parliament passed the anti-LGBTQ+ Bill. If assented to by President Akufo-Addo, persons who flout it risk being imprisoned.
The Bill prescribes, “A minimum custodial sentence of three (3) years and a maximum of five(5) years for individuals found to be willfully promoting, sponsoring, or supporting LGBTQ+ activities, and Person guilty of engaging in activities of LGBTQ+ will face a minimum custodial sentence of six (6) months and a maximum of three (3) years.”
The passage of the law has attracted adverse reactions from various stakeholders including the Ambassador of the United States in Ghana, UNAIDS among others.
‘I am saddened’ – US Ambassador to Ghana on passage of anti-LGBTQ+ Bill
Mr Whittal therefore appealed to the President not to approve the bill.
“This bill is not a law, so it cannot be used against anybody. There are still processes to make it a law. That is why I am raising the challenge to the presidency to consider whether he shouldn’t exercise his right of rejection on the basis of constitutionality aired against human rights. If it makes it through him, and if he also assents, I know there is a bunch of people who are ready to challenge the constitutionality of this bill before the Supreme Court.”
“We cannot just use the principle of our cultural values and throw all of us under the bus. We need to be very careful as a people,” he added while speaking on Joy FM on February 29.
Reacting to the comments by Mr Whittal on the same programme, lead sponsor of the Bill, Sam Nartey advised the Commissioner of CHRAJ to recuse himself from any petition that may be presented to the Commission in relation to the Bill.
“His position on this Bill from presenting memoranda against the bill all the way to public advocacy against the Bill makes him unfit to sit as a Commissioner of CHRAJ on any petition that will come there, because he already has a prejudiced position. His argument on human rights on this network is that some international human rights person said that sexual preference is a human right. He did not state what law that person used and whether that law takes precedence over the Constitution that created CHRAJ, that gave him a job,” he added.